How to authenticate with Active Directory

This document describes how to enable authentication for self-hosted Landscape with Active Directory using Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM).

Once enabled, users will be required to authenticate with an Active Directory account.

Contents:

  1. Integrate Landscape with Active Directory
  2. Create the first administrator account
  3. Migrate users to Active Directory authentication

Integrate Landscape with Active Directory

To integrate Landscape with Active Directory:

  1. Install the System Security Services Daemon (sssd) and helper tools:

    sudo apt install sssd-ad sssd-tools realmd adcli samba-common-bin policykit-1 packagekit

  2. Verify connectivity to the domain controller by discovering the Active Directory domain. Replace {DOMAIN} with the name of the Active Directory domain you want to connect to:

    sudo realm -v discover {DOMAIN}

    You’ll receive output similar to:

     * Resolving: _ldap._tcp.example.com
 * Performing LDAP DSE lookup on: 192.168.0.133
 * Successfully discovered: example.com
example.com
  type: kerberos
  realm-name: EXAMPLE.COM
  domain-name: example.com
  configured: kerberos-member
  server-software: active-directory
  client-software: sssd
  required-package: sssd-tools
  required-package: sssd
  required-package: libnss-sss
  required-package: libpam-sss
  required-package: adcli
  required-package: samba-common-bin
  login-formats: %U@example.com
  login-policy: allow-realm-logins

  3. Join the computer to the Active Directory domain. Replace {DOMAIN} with the domain you specified earlier.

    sudo realm -v join {DOMAIN}

    You’ll be prompted to authenticate as the administrator of the domain. If you need to use a different administrator account, include the -U flag and specify the account you want to authenticate as:

    sudo realm -v join -U {USER_ACCOUNT}@{DOMAIN} {DOMAIN}

    Once you’ve successfully joined the domain, you’ll be able to run commands such as id {USER_ACCOUNT} and getent passwd {USER_ACCOUNT} on Active Directory accounts to return group membership and other information.

  4. Create a file named /etc/pam.d/landscape and add the following lines to it:

    #%PAM-1.0
auth    required pam_sss.so
account required pam_sss.so
session required pam_sss.so

    This registers Active Directory as a PAM service.

  5. Restart Landscape:

    sudo lsctl restart

Create the first administrator account

To create the first administrator account:

  1. Navigate to the IP of your Landscape instance
  2. Complete the requested information to register the first administrator account
    • In the Identity field, enter the user’s relative distinguished name. In Active Directory, this is the “User Principal Name” and is most commonly defined with the user’s email address.

Other Active Directory users will need to be invited individually in Landscape. This process does not automatically grant access to all Active Directory users.

Migrate users to Active Directory authentication

Once a user is migrated to Active Directory authentication, the user’s password that was previously stored by Landscape will no longer be usable for login.

Users that have already been created in Landscape can be migrated to Active Directory authentication individually. To migrate users:

  1. Log in to Landscape as the user that will be migrated
  2. Click your username in the top right corner
  3. Click Edit settings
  4. Complete the Identity and Passphrase fields
    • In the Identity field, enter the user’s relative distinguished name. In Active Directory, this is the “User Principal Name” and is most commonly defined with the user’s email address.

If the user was correctly verified, they will be migrated to Active Directory for authentication.

Previous Ubuntu Pro: Enable Landscape Next OpenID-Connect (OIDC)

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